Exchange, Repair, Recycle

I’ve been emptying out my apartment to rent it while I’m traveling. It’s a good excuse to go through things, get rid of things, fix things or get them fixed. It’s been a bit intense, though, since I’ve found old photos of other lives I’ve lived, letters from my father, who passed away in 2020, and other funny, sad things.

At the moment, I’m on a chat with a live person (I think) to try to see if I can still use a portable keyboard for my smart phone. I’m a generation that still types. My students are so used to texting that they are better with their thumbs. It might be repairable. The keyboard is (or was) nice because it’s much more comfortable than thumbing it.

I’ve also decided to buy a used Kindle from a recycling site. It’s a weird step to take, me who’s carried books around for my entire life. I’m looking forward to having a nice screen that will permit me to read in the middle of the night without disturbing my partner. Apparently I can also get books off of the Gutenberg project with it, so that will be nice. Lots of free classics there, in public domain.

Ok, the chat has gone its full cycle. It appears that the battery cannot be changed on this model. Back in the days, I wasn’t so worried about electronic waste (I bought this probably in 2011). My memory is that it’s only recently, after a few legal decisions, was it even possible to change batteries on some smartphones. I mean, you could, there was just no where to do it or have it done, and you broke your warranty if you even tried.

So I’m off to take a huge bag of clothes off to the recycling point, plus other miscellaneous stuff that I need to get rid of.

And a little Foro news. Yesterday, I had the apartment photographed in order to rent it (I’m doing this with an agency.) I couldn’t really leave Foro out and about. I mean, I totally accept that it’s weird for an adult to have a relationship with a stuffed animal. So I put him safely away in a closet for the day. All this is okay and normal, but the deranged part is that when I got home, I hadn’t even closed the door properly when I went to get him out of the closet!